Exactly 11 months of TTC: thinking about possible options.

I hate to sound pessimistic, but I'm pretty convinced that this cycle is a bust like all the rest. Today is 11 dpo and I started spotting yesterday. I got a BFN when I tested yesterday. I didn't test today as the spotting is still there and it seemed like a waste of a test. My period is due Saturday (5/12) if my LP is its usual 13 days, so it won't be long now. I have a feeling my LP might end up being shorter this time because the spotting started earlier than usual. Normally it starts at 11 or 12 dpo, but it started at 10 dpo this time. My chart still looks OK, I guess, but the spotting is a pretty good indicator that we haven't been successful.

I'm going to be honest and say that yesterday was a terrible day for me. I just felt so low about the whole thing. I snapped at my hubby and then cried my eyes out. I really don't like what this process is doing to me, sometimes I can be such a bitch. I just feel like a total failure and this whole thing just hurts so much. For as long as I can remember I've wanted so much to be a mommy, and when we started our TTC journey I never imagined that at this point I wouldn't be pregnant. We know when I ovulate and we time things well every single cycle. I can't help but think there's something wrong, you know? I'm 28 and my hubby is 30. We don't have any medical issues as far as we know. We don't smoke, we hardly ever drink (we might have a couple of glasses of wine right at the beginning of my cycle when I don't temp, but that's it). I've been taking Mucinex for a few months around my fertile time to improve my cervical mucus and we started using Pre-Seed this cycle. We're going to join a gym today and we'll aim to go 3 times a week. Other than that I don't know what else we can really do to improve our chances.

Anyway, my hubby has made an appointment with his doctor for next week to get a referral for a semen analysis. It seems like the obvious thing to do, since it's non-invasive. I'll obviously need to get tested too, but at least if we know there are no sperm issues that's a start. Of course the SA could come back with bad results, but if that's the case we'd be better off knowing. If he's sterile (which I doubt, but who knows right?) then I can stop this crazy cycle of ups and downs. I'd be able to stop charting and all of that, because really what would be the point in that case? I honestly believe if either of us has a fertility issue it will be something wrong with me rather than him, but at least the SA will shed some light on things. There's every chance it'll come back great, and I really hope it does. We're both as prepared as we can be that it might not, though.

We've already discussed what our options might be if his SA is awful, and decided that we probably wouldn't want to use donor sperm if it came down to that. I just don't think I'd be comfortable with it. I think I'm mostly worried that my hubby wouldn't be able to handle it if I was pregnant and it technically wasn't his baby. Plus, I really want for us to have a baby that's part of us both.

If it transpires that IVF is our only option, I don't know what we'll do. We can't afford it (it costs approx. $16,000 per cycle, maybe even more). My issue with IVF is this: when do you stop? Wouldn't you just feel like "maybe the next cycle will work"? You'd have invested so much emotionally and financially, that you might not want to stop until you ended up with a baby. That could end up costing more than our house! Like I said, we couldn't really afford it anyway. If it was 100% guaranteed, then we'd probably make it work. Sadly, the odds are generally much lower than that.

We've talked about adoption and I did a little bit of research yesterday, but it sounds quite daunting. Apparently for every healthy baby up for adoption in the US, there are 40 couples waiting to adopt. Yikes. It can also cost up to $40,000, which is beyond our reach. The website I looked at tried to make the cost seem better by saying something along the lines of "any method of having a baby costs money - hospital bills etc." While this is true, there's this thing called insurance and ours covers virtually everything pregnancy and delivery related. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't cover anything to do with adoption! Plus, adoption opens a whole other can of worms. Some people who were adopted don't have a problem with it, while others have a whole host of issues because of it.

I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here: as far as we know, neither of us have any fertility problems. If one (or both) of us are found to have issues, they might be easily treated. There's a good chance we'll never need to consider IVF or adoption. I guess I just need to get my thoughts out at the moment!

I think joining the gym will do us both good, it'll be a great outlet for our frustrations. Back in the UK I loved going to the gym: I'd go 4 or 5 times a week. It helped - at that time, hubby (then fiancé) and I were more than 5,000 miles apart and it kept me busy.

I sometimes feel as though my hubby doesn't feel the way I do about our lack of pregnancy, but after talking to him last night I think it's just that he's better at hiding his feelings than I am. He's probably almost as disappointed as I am about the whole thing, but he doesn't get emotional like I do. I get it, in some ways it's not so real for men as it is for women. He's not the one having awful periods, feeling like everyone else is pregnant, charting, taking 2 different vitamins every day, taking Mucinex, using Pre-Seed, monitoring potential symptoms, taking pregnancy tests, etc. There's a quote out there that says something like this: a woman becomes a mother as soon as she finds out she's pregnant; men become fathers when the baby is born. There may be some truth to that, because it's not the guy who experiences pregnancy first-hand.

I really want the whole package - I want to be pregnant and experience the whole thing. I know it's not glamorous, and sometimes pregnancy is downright uncomfortable and annoying. I want to have that, though: to know our baby is growing in my tummy, to go to scans and see the baby on the screen, to give birth... all of it. I really hope it'll happen for us soon.

Somewhere around 3 dpo...

According to my chart, I'm 3 dpo today. The cross-hairs are dotted, though - I still have fertile CM so it's not sure. Right now it says I ovulated CD21, but I was thinking it happened CD22 so I guess we'll see in another day or two if the interpretation changes.


I've been feeling quite defeated with the whole TTC thing recently. For some reason it really hit me hard when we weren't successful with my last cycle. I don't know why that was harder than previous times, but it was. I haven't given up (clearly!) but I don't think I'm expecting anything at all now. I think if I ever do get my BFP I'll be completely shocked, LOL.

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Our last (4th) foster pug, Hudson, was adopted on Saturday 3/24. We'd had him 5 and a half weeks - that seems to be about average for all the fosters we've had before! He got a wonderful home with lovely people, and that's all I ever want for them all.

Sunday was the big pug rescue fundraiser, and it was crazy busy! All our former foster pugs, save for Hudson, were there! It was so nice to see them all; Cheko (still really timid, freaked out by all the people etc, but looking great otherwise!), Max (the one who stole my heart - also looking great!) and Tien Ping (fabulous as ever!). Cheko's name now is Mayhem (it's ironic!), Max is still Max (or Maxwell!) and Tien Ping is now Ollie. When my hubby told me Max was there (I was in the adoption room), my heart sank. He's the one who broke my heart, I so wanted to keep him. Gosh, even just writing that made me cry! I was happy to see him, of course, but I'm so glad I didn't break down (I thought I might). The people who adopted him are so nice, though, and I'm so happy he's got a great life now with people who adore him. It's a single dad with 3 kids, 10 through 16, and they're lovely. They won a basket of awesome pug cookies in the raffle, and they came and gave me one! I was so touched, it was really sweet of them :)


We already had our next fosters when Hudson went to his next home. Yep, I said fosters, plural! Thursday (3/22) an email plea went out for someone to take these two older pugs in, because their last foster home fell through. They've been with pug rescue for 2 months already, and we've seen them at some of the events. Well, I managed to persuade my hubby to agree to taking them in. At that point we still had Hudson, so we had 5 dogs here which was a shock to the system! These 2 are so sweet and easy-going, thank goodness. They're a bonded pair who have been together for 6 years, so they'll have to be adopted together. Milo is coming up 9 years old and Lilly is coming up 7 years old. Milo is a pug mix, possibly pug-basset hound or pug-beagle (puggle) - he has short legs, big feet and a long body (and long-ish snout!). Lilly is full pug. They're both adorable, we love them! Originally we were only fostering until the big fundraiser, but since they fit in so well here I asked if we could foster until they're adopted. Of course that wasn't a problem - we're inundated with pugs needing foster homes right now, and it's harder to place a pair than one dog on its own. Sadly that's the case for getting them adopted, too: it's likely they'll be with us a while. Milo currently has an anal gland infection so he's on antibiotics for that, and he badly needs a dental so he'll get that done in April when his infection has cleared up. He needs a few teeth pulling at least - they're really bad. I bet he'll feel great afterward, when he doesn't have any pain anymore (he doesn't appear to be in any pain now, but I bet he is with those wobbly bad teeth).

Lilly & Milo are just the cutest couple, though! They were given up by their owner because she was dating a guy who "didn't like them", so she married him anyway and had to surrender the dogs. Nice, huh? At least she did the right thing for them, and didn't just turn them out on the street. I don't know how anybody could not like these two, though!

Here they are at the adoption event we had on St. Patrick's Day, wearing festive bandanas I made for all the pugs (Lilly on the left, Milo on the right).


I hope they get adopted soon, but we're prepared that they might be with us a long time. Sometimes it can be really hard to place a bonded pair, because most people just want to adopt one dog. Plus they're a little older, and that sometimes works against them too. Also, Milo not being "pure pug" might go against them. However, the adoption fee for the pair is what it would normally cost just for Lilly, so hopefully someone will come forward to adopt them. I have to say, Milo is a real sweetie and it breaks my heart when people are super interested in Lilly, only to lose interest when they find out that she's bonded with Milo. He's a lovely boy: I hope someone will see that and give them both a great home!

Some good news!

Nothing related to TTC, but our foster pug was adopted today! We took him to a huge adoption event that pug rescue were at, and within an hour of the event starting he'd been adopted. The lady who adopted him had come to see him specifically; she'd seen his photo and information on the pug rescue website, and fallen in love with him. She just loves him to pieces, I'm satisfied that he's found a wonderful home! It was kind of hard to leave him with her though, because he was trying to come with us and it kinda broke my heart a little. I know he was confused and probably felt as though we were abandoning him, that's what hurt me the most. That, and the fact that he's such a sweet boy and I'll miss him. We had him for exactly a month - 11/3 through 12/3. I know that's not all that long in the grand scheme of things, but we took really good care of him and treated him as though he was our own dog (of course - I couldn't imagine doing it any other way!). I tried not to get too attached, but it's kind of inevitable that you do get somewhat attached. I know his new mom will take great care of him, but at the same time it does hurt. I know he'll be OK but I just wish he could know 3 things: that we love him, we weren't abandoning him and he didn't do anything wrong, you know? I know it's really confusing for him. I'm happy that he's been adopted though, I'm over the moon for him. He'll be OK I'm sure.

Of course, when he got adopted, there was already another one waiting for a foster home. Scratch that, there are at least 4 or 5 waiting for foster homes! Yikes. So we have another foster boy now, his name is Max and he's 2 years old. He weighs a whopping 35/36 pounds, though, so we need to help him lose weight. His previous owner was free-feeding him, which isn't a good idea with a pug (or most dogs, really). He really needs to lose at least 6 pounds, probably more like 8-10 pounds. It'll be a long process (probably way longer than we'll have him for) but he'll feel so much better when he loses the weight. He's such a cutie, I can't get over how funny his expressions are! His tongue is too long for his head so it hangs out most of the time, and he just looks really funny - it's too cute! Here he is:


I think he'll get adopted really quickly - he's such a sweet, cute boy and aside from his weight, he has no issues. He's a great boy all round. I actually kind of want to adopt him myself! I know we can't, but I totally would if we could. Of course that would mean no more fostering, so it's not the best option. Pug rescue need as many foster families as possible, they're constantly inundated with pugs! This week alone I think there have been 4 or 5 come in, it's crazy. At the event today one other pug (a beautiful, sweet, one-eyed girl) was adopted and there are a couple of pending adoptions as well. It's so rewarding to foster, even more rewarding than I'd imagined. To know you played a part in helping a dog is priceless, even if it does hurt when they leave again.